For starters, I myself wouldn't have made religious jokes within an ear shot of other co-workers. I'll firmly tell people I'm not Xtian in the rare cases when it's blindly assumed otherwise (e.g., co-workers who tell me "Merry Christmas"). And I really don't care if somebody wants to wear a crucifix or put a Ganesh statue in their cubicle, as I see these areas as being private and allowing for personal expression. But other than that, I follow the unwritten rule that religion and politics don't belong in the work place.

Besides, I don't know anybody who'd be stupid enough to proselytize in the office where I work, let alone any office environment. If somebody were dumb enough to try that with me, I would have reported the prick to HR.

I use the first tactic if I really like a Christian (or any sort of serious white-lighter) girl - careful lies. I will have to think of some clever story when my current girlfriend discovers my pentagram tattoo. But the fact that telling her outright about my affiliations would probably scare her away isn't going to stop me from enjoying her company for as long as she's worth keeping around.

To more specifically answer your question, I don't plan on having children with a woman who might have a problem with Satanism. And I don't plan on having children for several years, if ever, so this isn't currently a concern.

Although there are some who can have mature conversations about "religion", most cannot. Even those who are nominal christians will suddenly get convictions about their beliefs when someone like a Satanist (known or not) starts throwing their whole world into doubt and chaos. Even as attractive as doing something like that may be, it will often result in only upseting them, maybe to the point of violence.

I only engage in such talks until I can see that they do not have the potential to understand anything beyond what they think is the truth.

I am in the fortunate position of having a girlfriend who doesn't give a damn what I believe religiously. We both go by the credo "To each his/her own". She is a mild pagan/agnostic, which is very ironic, considering I normally cannot tolerate nor appreciate such "white lighter" rhetoric (By mild I mean she is into it mostly for asthetics as opposed to hardcore belief) . Although I have a strong distaste for religions other than satanism and true vampirism, I do assert that the freedom to choose what one believes is up to the individual.

"I believe that a guy in sandals died on a cross for my eternal salvation."

"Um... whatever. (as I gesture, a la 'shoo fly, shoo'...)"Just do not push your beliefs on me, or suffer the consequences of doing so!

Flesh and Bones_______________“For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.” ~ Charles Bukowski

It really depends on circumstances. In general, I do not discuss religion, the least at work. I do not drop the dreaded "S"- word either, though everyone working with me could learn the aethics of Satanism by the way I think, work, live, act & react. Yet, in case anyone bluntly comes to me asking questions like that, I'll either cut it short ["No."] or make a joke out of it by using their own prejudices and fears as a mockery - " yeeees, I'm a devil worshipper, I go out in the woods every new moon to sacrifice a virgin; by all means, as a neat christian, you surely have some of 'em virgins left for me, as they are really getting rare these days?". I'll exaggerate to such extend that they don't know what to think anymore, and surely will have to do some re-evaluation on their own weird presumptions. The same goes for odd questions about me wearing black all the time [1. yes - I'm one of them. 2. I haven't had any question about that for three years - the only time it was mentioned lately was when I put on a blond wig for half an hour, having lost a bet with my chef about something that was quite - ehrm, well, "blond" from my side. ]

In my opinion, we show our standards by showing our work and capabilities. Religion is not my issue. But I do wear necklaces like the CoS Baphomet, a Devil's head, a Gaos-sign at work, along with the everlasting black. I do not complain about people wearing crucifixes, but I think it's fair to do not expect them to complain about others wearing different signs either. I never have encountered any problems with that. My colleges have come to accept me for who I am and decorate my buro at birthday with a guirlande of bats and ghosts. They make black decorations for me. And they give a party when I paint a hundred pink hearts for another college's wedding.

It's not an issue at all.

_________________________
~ ... and the twisting, sacred Spiral formed by the Serpent of the Caduceus, and by the spinning of the galaxies, is also the same Leviathan as the Spiral of the biologist' Code of Life : DNA ~

I would have left my advice here, but on the other hand, the whole situation escalated because of lack of personal responsibility.

That's a whole different matter. Now when management calls him into the office to discuss religious discrimination, (and if it's corporate, they'll lay a fat book about 500 pages wide in his hands covering the subject) then defending one's own actions is going to go to a whole new level of prowess in lesser magic.

The best thing here is to avoid talking religion during work time. You never know who you're going to offend. You put yourself in that situation, you know that, right? Hell, YOU could be disciplined for being unruly at work. Cool it on the Jesus Jokes. There is a time for everything.

Who cares? They don't care about disparaging others and making an annoyance out of themselves. Give them what they want.

Mental Pain and Anguish. (Ie, be passive aggressive)

Christians are closet masochists at heart.

Christians, instead of subliminating their masochism openly and sexually (like self-realised people do) they go to church and engage in mutual mental masturbation and flagellation. (Or do both, the first always before the latter. What's the point in confessing if there isn't a sin to confess to?)

The best thing to do is let them play their masochistic role. This will give you good practice at being a sadist. They become more and more frustrated when they can't find anyone to read their Buy-Bull and believe in Jesus. By ignoring them, you are actually giving them what they so desperately desire in the first place. The evangelist is most miserable (and ecstatic) when there is that ONE person they can't get to because they WON'T listen to their drivel. They love to argue, but they secretly desire to be beaten at their own game. Seeing as how it is impossible to argue with a Christian, the sure road to defeating particulalry annoying one, is to play by their rules and do to them as they do unto others.

Treat their religion as inconsequential and meaningless.

They HATE it when you won't treat it like it's some big friggin deal.

"Sure. Great. Okay. Fine. I'm glad you are happy with your choice of religion. You _are_ happy aren't you? Don't answer that. Just think about it. See you later. Bye." And leave ceremoniously.

The only reason Christians have so much power is because they do stupid aggravating shit. If enough people would ignore them for long enough, the religion would die. Look at the Gods of Egypt. People eventually got fed up enough and started ignoring them. Now they are buried under meters of sand, and are curiousity peices in homes and museums.

_________________________
"Many people would sooner die than think - in fact, they do so." ~ Bertrand Russell

"“Let the future tell the truth, and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I have really worked, is mine.” ~ Nikola Tesla

Quote:This is conversation with a young woman I met in my new field office yesterday evening.

"Hey"-Young woman"Hey"- Me"I wanted to talk to you"-YW"Oh, yeah"-Me"Yeah, I heard you talking to Michael by the elevator this morning"-YW"So?"-Me"Why did you make that joke about jesus, the one with the cross? Are you an athiest?"-YW*Laughs* "Were you insulted?"-Me"You don't beleive in God do you?"-YW" I geuss it would be a dead giveaway if I told you to mind you own buisness."-Me"Why don't you beleive in God?"

Being so close to the Christians most important celebration of the year, naturally there are going to be many people who will react this way toward any thing that they think is insulting Christianity. An incredible amount of people seem to suddenly turn very religious this time of year (as at Easter) and are more sensitive to any remark made.

An it went on for about eight more minutes untill I told her to leave my office. It was so unbeleiveably annoying I nearly cursed her out. Someone who I did'nt even work with, someone who was in a totally different department. Thought it would be okay to badger me about my beleifs because we had a mutual freind.

Care to relate some sences like this an how you delt with it?

I deal with it by not discussing religion under any circumstance in the first place. Work is not the place for discussing that, nor is politics. Although in my case it would be a little difficult to work without discussing politics. I try and keep discussion focused on something that everyone can be part of.

I am also very lucky enough to work in an enviroment where everyone is an atheist or else very open minded about any and everything. Still, outside of work I have had the extreme misfortune to have to contend with a person who was your typical bible basher. It was one of those situations where I could not avoid being with the person.I simply listened for a period of time until I saw a window of opportunity. I then began to ask questions that I knew they couldnt reply to without contradicting themselves. What I actually did was to use what they actually believed in, in such a way that it could be used against them and make them become the ones who were very uninformed. They quickly shut up after that!

It has been said throughout his thread but I will throw in my own 2 cents as well.

I try to keep religion out of my work place.

I do expect the idiots to do the same.

If they do, I make it known fast and hard to drop it ( example; After a somewhat busy morning, one of my co-workers exclaimed loudly due to my work effort "God bless Charlie!" I responded back at the same volume "Your god has nothing to do with it" with the best pissed off face I could muster. ) Other times, when we had a new assistant manager who went around asking people if they went to church on Sunday so she would give them that day off, I just follow work protocol. Took her aside explained that there were Jews that worked in the company and that she was discriminating. This left me with the "unfortunate" task of having to write her up for the issue and she quit a week later. Ahh sometimes the guilt they have is so fun to watch.

I find it to be sufficient to keep any religion discussion at work cut to a minimal. If my co-workers want to discuss it more in depth, then I suggest after work at a pub and THAT makes for entertainment.

This is exactly what we learn to do at my study. "How do you tell someone something that he/she wants to hear, without saying exactly what he/she wants to hear. We actually had a very nice instruction video by his holiness John Cleese on this subject some weeks ago.

According to him, and most of our text books, you should: 1. Smile. 2. Say: "No, I don't believe in God."3. If the person starts asking on: say: "I have my reasons"4. If the person is persistent: keep repeating "I have my reasons" and start moving away. Or, if you are in your own office make the suggestion that you are very busy (or something of the sort)

Anyway, that is the textbook script. Unfortunately, people are not always that easy to reason with. If you get one of those: start running and don't look back! No. Just kidding. It has been my experience that if you make general remarks and stick to smiling (until your smile sticks to your face) people will actually lose their momentum, droop off (is that the correct way of saying it?) and go back to doing usefull stuff (like wearing blond wigs). Unfortunately I have had to deal with this situation a couple of times. Also very unfortunate, these were people that I had to work with in the future. So, bitching them out of the room was not really an option. The remark that "i had my reasons" really worked. They lost interest and got back to their work.

Well at my work there is a lady that comes in part time and everything she talks about is religion. How everyone is going to burn in hell, how the ends times are here (again, it seems the end times have been here for the last 2000 years)! She also related everything to religion and politics (which i am not getting into here as i am not going to start a political discussion as i bassically do not care at this point). Anyway she goes on and on and on and on and on and on...INFINITY! I just let her talk and ruin her life and live like a fool, as well it does not effect me, she is the one missing the boat. She also prays for all of us and lights candles and such etc..etc..INFINITY! The lady is nice and she is friendly BUT she is foolish and blinded by the herd. She is the epitomy of a zealot! She has no clue what i do, if she could only see thru my shirt and see what hangs around my neck (baphomet) i would never hear the end of it! I will ONLY discuss my Satanic ways under very specific circumstances. And yes i agree religion should not be brought into work! Xians get to shoove there Bibles and there dead religion down our throats, but do we dare shoove Satanism and The Satanic Bible down there throats..OH NO boy we would all be in deep shit then!